Facebook’s 
$2 billion deal to acquire Oculus last month marked the biggest bet yet on the resurgence of virtual reality.
While any price tag that hefty for an unfinished, unproven technology is bound to spark investor second-guessing, it’s hardly a surprise that this purchase is being especially scrutinized. Like 3-D, virtual reality is a concept that has been touted for years, but has always failed to live up to its potential—and historically been rejected by consumers.
Last 
week, Oculus VR was one of the most loved companies in the gaming world. Today, it’s in damage control mode.
Facebook’s $2 billion acquisition of the virtual reality headset company shocked gamers and game makers alike, who worry that the new owners will lessen the impact Oculus has on the videogame industry.
Oculus, 
the leader in the new wave of virtual reality headsets, has been purchased by social media giant Facebook.
The $2 billion deal, which is broken into $400 million in cash and $1.6 billion worth of Facebook stock, represents a seismic shift in the gaming space, as the upcoming Oculus Rift has been widely viewed as one of gaming’s most exciting upcoming technologies.
Virtual 
reality just got a lot more real.
After months of whispers, Sony confirmed Tuesday evening that it’s working on a virtual reality headset for the PS4. And while it didn’t give any details regarding a release window or price, Sony’s entry into this market further raises the profile of so-called VR 2.0 devices, building on the momentum Oculus started with their anticipated Rift device.
Middleware, 
post-mortems on game design, and discussions on ways to improve monetization in free-to-play titles generally aren’t the sorts of things that rev up players. And, on paper, the annual Game Developer’s Conference might seem a little too ‘inside baseball’ for the average person.
But in the detail-obsessed gaming world, GDC is one of the highlights of the year. It lacks the pomp and circumstance of E3 — as well as the big game announcements, generally — but it’s one of the best ways to get a sense of where gaming is going.
Rumors 
have been swirling since last September that Sony plans to introduce a virtual-reality headset for the PlayStation 4. Now it appears the company is preparing to open up about it.
TechRadar, citing unnamed sources, reports the company will unveil the headset at the 2014 Game Developer Conference, which starts in San Francisco on March 17. Other sources, speaking to Yahoo Games, say they also expect the company to make an announcement at the show, though they note it may change its mind at the last minute.
It 
might feel like Virtual Reality has been a part of our vocabulary forever, but the term didn’t really emerge until 1987. That’s when writer and computer scientist Jaron Lanier popularized the phrase, giving birth to an industry that wasn’t quite ready for prime time, but stirred imaginations everywhere.
Today, excitement over VR is booming, as some promising technologies get closer to retail release. It was a long road to get to this point, though, and success is still far from a guarantee. Here are a few of the significant milestones virtual reality has already faced in its relatively short life.
Three 
months ago, Sony made a big splash at E3 touting the PlayStation 4 to the world. At the same time, though, it was already laying the groundwork for another notable consumer technology venture.
As media and buyers got hands on time with the upcoming console and debated the WWE-like theatrics of the Sony and Microsoft press conferences, the company was holding top secret meetings with developers and publishers, showing off a virtual reality headset for the PS4 and drumming up support for it.
John 
Carmack, widely credited as the creator of the first-person shooter genre, has taken a new job.
The co-founder of id Software — and one of the most highly-regarded developers in the industry — was today announced as the new chief technical officer at Oculus VR, makers of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.
John 
Carmack, whose “Doom” and “Quake” helped revolutionize the video game industry, is looking to lead a new upheaval with a technology once dismissed as a pipe dream.
Carmack, the co-founder of id software, has been named the new chief technical officer at Oculus VR, makers of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.
Chris Morris: Journalist 